| Chara | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | sʼaːra[1] |
| Native to | Ethiopia |
Native speakers | 13,000 (2007 census)[2] |
| None | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | cra |
| Glottolog | char1269 |
| ELP | C'ara |
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Chara (alternativelyCiara orC’ara) is anAfro-Asiatic language of theNorth Omotic variety spoken in theSouthern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region ofEthiopia by 13,000 people.
Chara is geographically situated to the southeast ofNayi, west ofKullo, northeast ofMesketo, and northwest ofGofa.[3]Chara speakers live in theSouthern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, in theDebub Omo Zone, on both sides of theOmo river.[4] Chara speakers are scattered in three villages inEthiopia:Geba a meša,Buna Anta, andKumba.[1] Native speakers may also speakMelo,Wolaytta (54% lexical similarity with Chara) to the east, andKafa to the west.[4]
[p] and [f] are in free variation.[6] /ɗ/ only occurs in the word /jalɗa~jaltʼa/ 'crooked'.[5] Yilma (2002) found /ɓ/ to occur five times in around 550 lexical items.[6] He also found /ʑ/ occurring in two, both in the sequence /iʑa/.[6] Occurrence of /ɗ/ and /pʼ/ may be governed by dialectal variation.[6]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
/a/ is realized as [ə] in unstressed word-medial syllables.[7]
Length is minimally contrastive.[6] Minimal pairs include /mola/ 'fish', /moːla/ 'egg'; /masa/ 'to wash', /maːsa/ 'leopard'; /buna/ 'flower', /buːna/ 'coffee'.[6]
Chara has phonemic stress.[7] Examples: /ˈbakʼa/ 'to slap', /baˈkʼa/ 'empty'; /ˈwoja/ 'to come', /woˈja/ 'wolf'.[7]
Morpheme-initial nasals assimilatepoint of articulation to that of the preceding consonant, usually found when verbs are suffixed with the singular imperative morpheme/-na/, e.g./dub-na/ "to hit.imp" →[dubma] 'hit!'.[8]
Chara generally uses noun case suffixes andpostpositions.[4]
Nouns are inflected for gender, number, definiteness, case, and possession.[9] These are all suffixes, except for the possessive.[9]
Gender pairs are usually lexical, except for a few with /-i/ in the masculine and /-a/ in the feminine.[9] Examples:[9]
Nouns and adjectives inflect for plural with the suffix /-eːndi/.[9] Examples:[10]
Definiteness in nouns is marked with the suffix /-naːzi/ (as an independent word meaning 'the male/man') for masculines and /-ena/ for feminines.[11] Adjectives take /-bi/ in the masculine and /-ena/ in the feminine.[11] Examples:[11]
Nouns and adjectives may be marked fornominative,accusative,dative,genitive,ablative,instrumental, orvocative case.[12] The nominative suffix is /-i/, accusative /-(i)s/, dative /-(i)ri/, genitive /-e/, ablative /-kaj/, instrumental /-ne/, and vocative /-o/.[12]
| Person | Independent | Possessive | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (s) | (pl) | (s) | ||
| 1 | /tani/ | /noːne~nuni/ | /tareri/ | |
| 2 | /neːni/ | /inˈti/ | /nereri/ | |
| 3 | (m) | /izi/ | /itsendi/ | /izeri/ |
| (f) | /iza/ | |||
Bound possessive pronouns: /ta-mija/ 'my cow', /ne-mija/ 'your cow', /iza-mija/ 'his cow'.[14]
Chara is asubject–object–verb language.[4]
Adjectives end in /-a/ like nouns, and inflect for number, definiteness, plurality, and case.[15] In noun phrases adjectives precede their nouns, and are not inflected.[15]
| Number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chara | issa: | nanta: | keza: | obda: | uchcha | sa:fun | la:pun | nandirse | biza: | tantsa: |